Ten Ruby Trick

by Julia Knight

  “But, um, well, you’re free now. That’s good.”

  “Is it?” Holden had dreamed of it for long enough, but not this total freedom, not this fear. It wasn’t as it had been in his dreams. “I don’t know what to do, to think.”

  “Anything you like, that’s the point.”

  Holden couldn’t tear his eyes away from the part of him that was missing. “Anything I like.”

  Life was too big to comprehend. That word, it could encompass universes. Anything. Anything. It repeated in his head, bounced around the inside in all its permutations. Anything. He could do anything, and all he could think of was to get back to the Master, get back the basic bond. Not too tight, just enough to hold him in check, to pull his thoughts into order and show him the patterns. Back to normality, to peace and stillness and knowing what the right thing was.

  “You need to think bigger,” Guld said.

  “Bigger? It’s already too large to hold in my head. Smaller, that’s what I need. Smaller.”

  Guld smiled, soft and understanding, as though he’d been through just the same once. “Start with small things then. First let’s stop the bleeding. Then I think you should do what Van wants. Plenty of time after to figure it all out. Just concentrate on one thing at a time.”

  Holden took a deep breath of the rancid air that leaked through the open window. It even smelled different, sharper than he remembered. “What’s Van Gast going to do?”

  Guld muttered under his breath and Holden’s stump felt like it was on fire. The stench of seared flesh added itself to the general stink, and Holden gritted his teeth against the scream but the bleeding stopped.

  “Good question. I don’t think even he knows. I suspect that some people will regret pissing him off, though. You included. Sorry about that.”

  Van Gast left Guld with Holden, and orders to follow on quietly when the Remorian was able. He ran toward the docks, hiding in shadows, jumping half out of his skin at every movement. He had to see what they were up to, decide what he could tell the racks in the inns and whorehouses round about. See what he could use to rouse them. Maybe offer them the chance of a ship or two to rob blind before Cattan and Josie returned from the meeting. Only it had taken him too long, they’d be too late, and the Remorian mage would be back aboard Josie’s ship by now. Probably starting a search for Van Gast.

  Forget Josie, what she’d done to him. His mind said that wasn’t important now, though his heart was screaming at him that of course it was important, more important even than avoiding getting bonded. He told his heart to shut the fuck up, and stopped listening. Get organized and then stop the Remorians hunting him, for good. He could deal with everything else later.

  He slipped into a side alley as two men loped down the street. Even from where he hid, Van Gast could smell the Remorian stink on them. Looking for him already. The chances of him making it through this alive got slimmer with every passing minute. He slid along behind the Remorians in the shadows. It wasn’t long before he was at Booze Square.

  It was a nightmare. Remorians were everywhere, in every inn, at every stall. Looking for him and not being gentle about it. Blood spotted the flagstones outside Moorain’s. The inn that he and Guld had hidden in earlier was empty, windows out and blood smeared up the walls. They weren’t only aiming for racks, either—two painted doxies ran screaming past him, one with a gash to her face that would put paid to her only source of income.

  A group of Remorians came out of an inn, arms bloodied to the elbow, copper-bronze skin shining in the lamplight, their faces blank and purposeful. The muffled scream of someone begging to be spared the bond turned Van Gast’s stomach. The begging turned into a full-blown screech, bouncing round the square and picking up counterpoints and echoes from other inns, other men begging then screaming.

  Brandick fell out of an inn not four doors away, dead eyes turned up to the stars that had always guided him, a crude, jagged slash across his throat and a broken sword in his hand. Even Brandick.

  Van Gast took a shaking step back. He could do nothing here, nothing to help except to be bonded with them. He turned away from Brandick’s accusing face, the eyes full of death and recrimination, and ran back the way he’d come as fast as his reeling head would let him.

  He stopped for breath in a fishmonger’s doorway, the stench suiting the rolling of his stomach. No help here, not now. He’d brought death everywhere. They’d come for him and taken them. He ran on in a shambling, hopeless lope. Bastards. Fucking bastards. He let the words repeat in his head, over and over in time to his steps. Fucking Josie. Bitch.

  A thundering boom from ahead jarred him to a halt. Cannon, in the docks. He ducked into an alley as a huddle of Remorians hurried past. Cannon in the docks? When the street was empty again, he stumbled on.

  Josie’s ship, another two alongside, stood lonely at the far end of the wharf. Tarana’s cannon, ones Van Gast had been sure were just for show because they’d never been fired in living memory, peppered shot at them and were answered by the ship closest.

  Two Remorians stood guard by the end of the gangplank of Josie’s ship and the rest spread out along the wharf, boarding the merchantmen to soon-subdued protests. Van Gast slipped behind a little shack that housed the harbormaster’s staff during the day and from there slid back to where he was to meet Guld and Holden.

  That fucker was going to pay for this—him, and Josie, and the mage. They were all going to pay. In blood.

  Van Gast spat bitter fear-spit on the muddy road and pushed Holden forward. He’d had Holden put on his cloak and it lay draped over his stump, hiding it to all but anyone who got really close. Guld brought up the rear, and Van Gast could smell the terror on him. “Stay close,” he hissed. “And stay ready.”

  Guld swallowed heavily, blinked at everything they passed as though he expected it to turn into a dragon, and hurried to catch up.

  Almost back at the docks now, in that maze of higgledy-piggledy houses, inns, warehouses and brothels that crammed every available space, leaving only the narrowest of roads to follow. The damp, misty darkness enveloped Van Gast like a friend, kept them safe, or safer, from prying eyes. Guld tripped over a half-empty barrel of fish just on the turn and tried not to retch at the smell. “Are you sure about this, Van?”

  “No, but I’m doing it anyway. You can bugger off if you like, see how far you get. I won’t hold it against you. But I swear I’m going to get these bastards. I won’t be bonded.”

  “I, um, no, I’ll stick with you. Behind you is usually the safest place to be.”

  Holden chuckled under his breath. “Kill them? You can’t kill them. The Master can’t die. He’s lived a thousand years, survived a thousand attempts on his life, because every bonded man would die rather than see him wounded, would die if he so much as wished it. Don’t you see? That’s what we’re for, because without the bonded to serve his every wish, all he can do is magic. All, what am I saying? His powers make Cattan’s seem pitiful, and he could squash you to dust without a second thought. And he’s on his way, his ship’s only a bell away, at most. Waiting for them to catch you. He’ll find you and then you’re shark bait, and that’s just to start with.”

  “It isn’t him I’m going to kill. Unless the opportunity arises, perhaps, and they won’t need to find me, because we’re going to find them. Walk right in and say hello.”

  Holden stopped dead and turned a pale face his way. “Walk right in? Are you mad?”

  “Do you know, yes, I think I am a little.” Van Gast thought about it. “Maybe a lot right now. Walk right in, and make sure they won’t ever come after me again. And you’re going to help me.”

  Something settled on Holden’s face, cleared the shock once and for all. His eyes tightened and his lips set in a stubborn line. “Why should I do that?”

  “This Cattan, he fucked you over, yes? Took your bond and tightened it, made it so you couldn’t talk even without permission, you said. I had to cut half your arm off to get rid of i
t. You going to let him get away with that?” Van Gast forced a sickly grin. “Get away with Josie? Going to be a coward your whole life?”

  Holden’s lip twitched and his words were forced through clenched teeth. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean from everything you’ve told me, you’ve been a coward your whole useless fucking life. Let them run everything in your head, your life, your soul. You let them take it and you thanked them for it and asked for more. This is your chance. You help me kill Cattan, help me stop them chasing me, and I’ll let you take that bond off her.” Van Gast couldn’t even bring himself to say her name. “I might even let you both live after. Might. It’s all the chance you’ve got, because it’s that or I shoot you dead right here, right now, and I’d not even think twice about it.”

  “I’m beginning to wish you would.”

  “Don’t tempt me. I’ve given you the freedom to think for yourself, choose for yourself what you’re going to do for the first time in your miserable life. So, here you are, out in the free world with the rest of us fuckups. No one to make your choices for you, not even me with this gun in your back. Your choice to help me, or get a bullet in the head. Make your choice. Yours and yours alone. But with you or without you, I’m going on that ship and I’m killing every last Remorian bastard I can find. Yes, even her, if she’s still bonded when I find her. Maybe even if she’s not. Put them all out of their fucking misery.”

  Holden took a step back, his eyes flicking back and forth as he thought, but not for too long. He stared down at the stump. “I always dreamed to be free, one day. Always, but the bond in your head…” He stood up straight, decision made, not that he really had much of a choice but maybe these things were best approached in baby steps. “You stay your hand on her. Stay your hand, and we’ve a deal.”

  Van Gast hesitated. If he were honest, it was her, her betrayal, that had him all fired to kill. He wasn’t sure he could look her in the face. The thought of her and this, this—he had no words, no thoughts, nothing but a whirling mash of images in his brain, of her laughing, of her in his bed, of her kissing him. Of her saying Trust me. He couldn’t think of it, so he wouldn’t, and any word he gave to Holden would be a lie anyway. Odd, the man didn’t stink of Remorians anymore. “As long as I don’t have to see it, or her, you’ve a deal.”

  Holden’s lips twitched in a smile. “I could get to like this. And straight in isn’t the best way. What we need is Skrymir.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Holden lurked in the mist, shadowed by the tumbledown wall of an old tannery. Josie’s ship, like the other two ships crewed by Remorians masquerading as racketeers, was seemingly empty of crew. All off looking for Van Gast, scouring street and inn and brothel and not taking no for an answer. Cattan, and the Master once he arrived, would be aboard, using their magic and their will to guide the crew. Not looking close by. He hoped.

  The faint strains of screams wafted along the mist, muffled, indistinct, but evidence of the thoroughness of the search. Holden tried not to think about what his men were doing, what, until a few hours or so ago, he’d have been ordering them to do whether he liked it or not. The emptiness, the sense of the world being a vast place of nothing with him a dot in it, of the walls of his existence falling into rubble, began to fade. He had choices now. Good ones, bad ones, but his. His mind still shuddered from the implications, but he could see a glimmer of light. He was drunk with blood loss and a sense of freedom he never thought his.

  So, ship almost empty. Almost, but Skrymir would be there. Nothing would induce him to break that, to break his new oath to Josie. Holden marveled that Skrymir chose it, chose the oath, chose to follow it or not according to what his heart told him.

  He shook himself. No time for this, no time for marvels. He had to get that bond off Josie before it killed her. There might still be time. Two crewmen stood at the end of the gangplank, blank-faced and implacable. Ignoring Van Gast’s whispered threat behind him, Holden adjusted the cloak to hide his lack of a left hand, and strode toward them.

  They straightened as he approached, the one on the left giving way to a look of frank astonishment. “Commander?”

  “Get Skrymir, quick, and as many men as you can muster. You, stay with me and take your orders.”

  The left-hand guard ran up the plank quick smart, and Holden turned to the other.

  “We heard you was taken, Commander.”

  “You heard correctly, though they didn’t bother with me for long. Van Gast is injured, and I know roughly where he’s hiding. He can’t get far like that. Badly concussed, broken ribs maybe, and who knows what else. He won’t run, he’s got nowhere to run to and his mage is pathetic, even if he weren’t exhausted. Won’t be long before we find them.” Even to lie like that was an extraordinary thing, a zing in his blood for the audacity of it.

  Skrymir trotted down the plank, half a dozen ratings behind him. He looked Holden up and down with barely hidden disgust. Holden didn’t blame him. Now the freedom was rushing through him like the finest wine, he knew just why the Gan hated what he’d done so much.

  “Skrymir, you stay with me. The rest, I last saw him on the east side, tatty little place called the Rat’s Castle. He can’t run far, he’s injured and no one will help him, not against us, not against the threat of a bond. Get him and bring him. The Master will reward whoever takes him first, reward him very well, as long as he’s alive to be bonded. Go!”

  The two lead ratings nodded and led them out, across the refuse of the docks and up into the warren of streets on the east side. Van Gast had assured Holden that anyone asked would give directions to the Castle—an inn that didn’t exist, an old trick he said, one that the racketeers paid well for, for protection.

  Skrymir watched them go and then turned his implacable gaze on Holden. “She’s dying.”

  “I know, and I’ve come to take it off her, if she’s still strong enough.” He let the cloak fall, just enough to show the stump. “I’m not bonded anymore, not Cattan’s slave. I need to get to her, quick and quiet, take the bond off and get out. Help me and you can keep your oath to her after all.”

  Skrymir nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ll help. Breaking an oath, it’s a terrible thing for a man’s soul. Only a Gan man, he has one oath above all, to his king and their kin. That braid of hers—she’s Jornn’s house, king’s house. I’d rather break no oath, but if it came to it, it’s the first I’d keep. Even if not…she’s, well, she’s a woman. You don’t treat women like that. It’s the law.” A choice, even for the hidebound Gan.

  Holden wanted to laugh with the joy of it, half-mad with desire to do whatever he felt like with nothing to stop him. “You won’t need to. Get us in, get us on board and let me take the bond off. Then we’ll see about Cattan. I’ve a score to settle with him.”

  “Us?”

  Holden beckoned to the racketeers. Van Gast slipped through the fog like a shadow, and they only knew he was there when his dark, angry eyes and false grin appeared before them. Guld tried to copy him, but the gulping and nervous “um” gave him away long before he reached them.

  “Let’s get on board quick,” Van Gast said, and he set off at a light, loping run. By the time Holden was on board, he’d disappeared.

  Van Gast wasn’t sure where he was going, or what he was going to do when he got there. He only knew that he was angry enough, hurt enough, to kill everyone here. Remorian stink was everywhere, sticking in his nose and making him sneeze and cough. He would save the captain’s quarters to last, savor it and hate it. With any luck, he’d not have to face her. He never wanted to see her, think about her ever again, and yet it was all he could think about.

  Kill the mage, make sure they wouldn’t come after him again, fill his mind with that less painful thought. Make it so that any chase would be too costly in men, in mages, in defeat. First make sure any crew aboard were good and dead, then sneak up on the mage and kill him. Even a mage couldn’t do much against a pistol shot from behind. Or—and no
w here was a pleasant thought—the whole fucking ship going up like a firework. Now that was a plan.

  He leaped down the steps and headed aft, down another set of steps to the brig. Some of her crew would be around—he’d seen them in Sarigin—but he doubted they’d have free rein. They could be useful allies, if they weren’t bound. If they were, he’d give them the choice he’d failed to give Holden. Arm or life.

  Only a few lamps were lit and it was dim down there. Van Gast made his careful, soft way along, using the faint light and his knowledge of the ship to guide him. Vague shapes moved around behind the bars of the brig. One came toward the door as he came level. Josie’s first mate, Galdon. In the half light his face was skeletal, the eyes blank, pleading holes.

  “Van Gast?” he whispered in a voice as dead as a month-old corpse. He thrust a hand out to grab at Van Gast’s arm with a viselike grip. Van Gast stared at the exposed wrist. A purple line encircled it, darker lines radiating from it in malignant waves, and he stank of Remorians, of betrayal, of hopelessness. “Help me, please, for Kyr’s mercy. They bonded us, and it’s killing us.”

  Half a dozen others crowded forward, reaching out to grab at him, at his shirt and hair and hand. “Kyr’s mercy,” they whispered to him.

  He staggered back out of their reach, his stomach ready to betray him at the stench, at the disgust and pity he felt. “Are you all bonded?”

  “Aye,” Galdon said. “All bonded, all dying, slow and sure, all but the boy. That fucking mage plans to do him as soon as his Master gets here.”

  “Boy? What boy?”

  The crew parted and a figure came hesitantly toward him. A small dark boy stood just out of reach behind the bars and stared up at him, his eyes round with fright.

  What in the world…? “Why’s Josie got a boy on board? You, boy, what’s your name?”

  The boy’s lip trembled but he took a deep breath and spat on Van Gast’s boot.